The next is the transcription of an interview with Austan Goolsbee, president of the Bank of the Federal Reserve of Chicago, which was issued in “Fac The Nation Margaret Brennan” on April 20, 2025.
Weijia Jiang: We are now going to the economy and the president of the Bank of the Federal Reserve of Chicago, Austan Goolsbee, joins us this morning from Chicago. Austan, it’s great to see you this morning.
Austan Goolsbee: Yes. Thank you for inviting me, Weijia.
Weijia Jiang: I want to talk about the tariff’s plan of President Trump, Becoaus last week, the president of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, said that the rate increases were higher than expected, and the economic effects will also be, including greater inflation and slower growth. Do you agree with that evaluation?
Austan Goolsbee: Well, look, I’m here outside. The Chicago Fed district is the heart of the west, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan. Friends, when I am talking to them, businessmen and civic leaders say for months that they had anxiety that if the tariffs were going to be as great as what they say, they say that the wound could a prete in, that is that form, that is this signature, those are lives lives. Tarifa’s announcement, on April 2, was definitely larger than what they had on the legs expressing, but there are only many question signs. We do not know within 90 days, when, when the rates are checked, we simply do not know how great they will be.
Weijia Jiang: Yes, and the administration says they have many offers in the works, so we have to wait to see how they look. Trump’s former economic advisor, Gary Cohn, was in CNBC talking about what he is listening to from business executives about how Areumers are at this time. I want to play that for you for you.
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Gary Cohn: What everyone worries are June, July and August. Are we simply taking out all this summer demand? Because people who were going to buy things naturally for the next six months say: Look, I’m going to save the rate. I’m going to buy it now.
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Weijia Jiang: Then, he is talking about people trying to get ahead of tariffs in case they do not reach any agreement in case these high numbers are put into effect. So I wonder if he is listening to the same of his contacts in Chicago that people try to hurry to buy, and how does that affect their perspective for the economy?
Austan Goolsbee: Yes, that type of preventive purchases is probably even more pronounced on the commercial side, where in anticipation, many of the imports to which tariffs would apply, especially in the automotive sector, are things that are pieces, components, supplies that enter the manufacture of other products. So we listen a lot about the preventive construction of inventories that could last 60 days, 90 days, if there was going to be more uncertainty. That raises the possibility that Gary Cohn raised there, that activity might seem artificial in the initial and then for the summer, could fall, because people had everything and carried it forward. I still have hopes, and the people I talked to in the west still have the hope that in the back -where would be more what Secretary Besent said, that could be a spark for a new het called Age Golden Age of Global Trade. If we can overcome this, it is important to remember that hard data in April were quite good, the stable unemployment rate, full employment, inflation decreasing. It is just a desire for people to express that they do not want to return to children or 21 and 22 at a time when inflation was, it was really out of control.
Weijia Jiang: I have it. I want to go to Jay Powell’s comments on the impact of tariffs, or the potential impact, because they took Trump to Schemeter declaring that “Powell’s termination canot is fast enough.” This is what the president said when journalists pressed if he has the power to eliminate Powell.
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Donald Trump: I’m not happy with him. I let him know, and if I want to leave, he will be out of there very fast, believe me.
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Weijia Jiang: Now, Austen, I know that the Fed does not become politics, and I will not ask you to do that, but I wonder if statements like this undermine or complicate your work as an apolitical institution.
Austan Goolsbee: Look, I’m slippery, they didn’t ask me for legal advice, because I have an economic doctorate. You never ask someone’s legal advice. I would say that monetary independence before being in the Fed, I was a research economist at the University of Chicago. There is virtual unanimity among economists that the monetary independence of political interference, which the Fed or any central bank can do the work it needs to do, is really important. And they come to that not as a theory, but just looking around the world in places where they have no monetary independence. And the fact is that the inflation rate is higher, growth is slower, the labor market is worse. So we really hope we do not move to an environment where monetary independence is questioned. Because that would undermine the credibility of the Fed.
Weijia Jiang: Very good, Austen, thank you very much for your time and happy Easter for you.
Austan Goolsbee: Yes, Happy Easter. Great to see you, Weijia.
Weijia Jiang: We’ll return.